The present invention relates to a transporting apparatus for transporting sheets of paper and articles like paper in accordance with a sorting information indicated for each of the sheets and a paper sorting apparatus for sorting sheets of paper and articles like paper in accordance with a sorting information indicated for each of the sheets.
There have been heretofore employed paper sorting apparatuses for sorting sheets of paper and articles like paper to classify postal matter in accordance with sorting informations such as postal codes, bar codes, and addresses indicated on postal items including postcards and letters.
Description will be given of such a sorting apparatus of the prior art. The apparatus includes supply means for supplying sheets of paper at a time to the apparatus. There are additionally included separating means to obtain each of the sheets from the supply means with a fixed gap between the obtained sheets, transporting means to transport the separately attained sheets, read means to read a sorting information indicated for each sheet, a plurality of sorting transporting units in which each unit opens and closes a gate for a transport path of each sheet and transports the sheet at a fixed speed, and a plurality of sort shelves arranged along the respective sorting transporting units in which the sheet is sorted into one of the shelves in accordance with classification indicated by the opening and closing of the gate.
In this configuration, while the sheet of paper from the supplying unit is being transported by the transporting unit, the sorting information on the sheet is read, and then related gates are opened and closed so that the sheet is fed via the transporting unit and the sorting transporting unit to be sorted and delivered to a sort shelf associated therewith.
In the sorting apparatus of this kind, due to thickness and materials of each sheet of paper or the like thus transported, there arises difference in friction with belts disposed in the transporting units and in smoothness of passage thereof through a transporting direction changing section. Resultantly, the gap or interval between the sheets may possibly change before the sheets are brought to the sorting transporting units or the sort shelves. Namely, there occurs mismatching between the opening and closing timing of each gate and the arrival timing of each sheet, which leads to a difficulty that the sheet of paper cannot be fed to an appropriate transporting unit and/or an appropriate sort shelf. Particularly, when the sheet gap becomes equal to or less than a predetermined value, the gates cannot be normally operated and hence there occurs a disadvantage that the sheet of paper cannot be delivered to a predetermined transporting unit and/or an appropriate sort shelf.
A sorting apparatus to solve the difficulties in the transporting of sheets of paper has been proposed, for example, by JP-B-8-018728 (JP-A-2-188344). The sorting apparatus includes a fixed-speed transporting unit for transporting sheets of paper or the like at a fixed speed, a varying speed transporting unit for transporting sheets of paper or the like at a desired speed, a gap detecting unit for detecting a gap between sheets of paper being transported by the fixed speed transporting unit, a position detecting unit for detecting a position of each sheet of paper being transported by the varying speed transporting unit, and a control section for controlling the transporting speed of the varying speed transporting unit in accordance with an output from each of the gap and position detecting units.
Detecting by the gap detecting unit the gap between the sheets of paper sequentially transported by the fixed speed transporting unit, any gap equal to or less than a predetermined value is corrected for the appropriate sorting of the sheets of paper.